Debit Cards for Travel

Debit Cards for Travel

The following is a question from Byron about the benefits of using debit cards while traveling in foreign countries:

Hey Wade, Byron here with another travel question. Do you carry a debit/card with you when you travel, or do you even have a bank account at all? I have been told it is a smart idea to have a debit card, that way you don't have to carry all of your cash on you. And some people even say you should have 2 bank accounts.

But are there some banks that are better for travelers? Because I don't see how you can manage a bank account(deposit money) if there is no bank nearby. At least I'm pretty sure there are no Bank of Americas in Mexico, hahaha.

Hello Byron,

Yeah, unfortunately my name, number, and soul are tied up into the spider webs of the global-banking leviathan. I have a bank account and I use debit cards as one of my methods of storing and retrieving my travel funds. My debit card draws from a USA based bank, and I am of the unhappy opinion that this is probably the most secure way to acquire travel funds in foreign countries. I feel that traveler's checks are just about as useless as the paper they are printed on and cash is losable, stealable, ruinable, befuddling, and occasionally leads me into many annoying experiences while converting it into local currencies - I have found that the less monetary interactions I have with people of a country the more I am able to enjoy myself. In point, ATM machines are now well positioned around the globe and allow for the easy withdraw of funds in local currencies. The benefits that I receive from carrying around plastic cards is that I can walk into any country and suck out my dollars from a machine pre-transformed into Euro, Yen, RMB, rocks, rubble, sticks, stones, metal, or whatever else passes as money.
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Philadelphia, PA, USA- August 31, 2008
Travelogue -- Travel Photos
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ATM use strategy:

This may be a leap of faith, but it is my impression that most moderately sized cities in the world have a Visa compatible ATM somewhere. But, as this is a leap of faith and not a fool proof claim, if I am in a country with hit and miss ATM facilities I make sure that I withdraw enough money to last for a long time once finding a money machine. But this precaution is quickly being made unnecessary by the army of ATMs that popping up all over the world. If I am in a country with readily available money machines I do not have to really think about money, as I just stroll into the nearest town when I go broke and reprovision myself.

Debit cards without Visa logos are useless:

I cannot emphasize this point enough: I have found that if a debit card does not have a Visa logo on it it is virtually useless. Simply put, it is my experience that Mastercard, American Express etc . . . are not travel worthy. I can remember telling Erik the Pilot to make sure his ATM card was Visa compatible before he moved to Costa Rica in 2006. He did not heed my warnings: "Mastercard will work there, my bank told me so," he said. I just nodded my head knowing that he and his stupid bank were perilously wrong. On our next meeting he admitted to many tales of woe about how he was stuck without money numerous times and hassled because he could not find ATMs that accepted Mastercard.

I just laughed at him.

Bank account and card arrangement:

I use a small credit union from the USA as my bank. I have two accounts that I use for travel: a savings and a checking. I keep the bulk of my money in my savings account (from which I cannot withdraw funds with a debit card) and transfer money to my checking account (which is the account that my debit card withdraws from) as needed. I make these transfers online. In this way, even if I were to have my debit card stolen, the thief would only be able to use a small portion of my total funds (only what is in my checking account). I usually keep around $500 in my checking account unless I know that I will soon purchase a plane ticket.

I am fortunate enough to have parents in the USA that deposit funds into my account for me. Both of their names are on all my accounts so they can do what I wish them to with my money while out of the country. The scraps of money that I get paid to me in checks are sent to my folk's home and they deposit them into my savings account. From here I put money into my checking account and make withdraws when I need to. Money that I make in cash while traveling I carry with me and try to spend before withdrawing more money or I change it into dollars or euros to stash.

Diversify money carrying methods:

At one time I use to carry American dollars, American Express traveler checks, and two copies of my debit card with me. But I have now shed reliance on travelers checks after I carried the same $500 bundle with me for two years without using it once. I have found that traveler checks are useful only as toilet paper or fire starter, and I therefore do not waste my mind with trying to obtain or use them. Most places on the globe do not accept them and I no longer wish trying to make stern faced bank androids understand that American Express traveler checks are as good as cash and can be used anywhere. They are not as good as cash and cannot be used everywhere.

But I still carry a good wad of cash on me - at least $500 USD. Cash can usually be easily changed into local currency anywhere in the world except for France. The French bank clerk seems to delight in being an asshole. Someday - probably when the loan sharks catch my scent and having a bank account will be more of a liability than an asset - I will surely carry most of my travel funds hidden on my person. In nine years of travel I have not yet been penetrated by thieves to the point that they would have been able to dig out money sewn into my clothing (where I keep my cash) and I do not think that many people would be so destitute as to strip me naked and claim my ragged garments as their own. I think traveling with only cash is 90% safe, and I use debit cards only because they allow me to make use of checks that need to be sent to a steady address.

I tend to carry two identical debit cards hidden on me in a location that I rarely access in public - either in a money belt or in a hidden pocket sewn into the inside of my trousers. I carry two cards to allow me a backup if I happen to break or damage one of them. If I loose one ATM card while traveling I would have to cancel it, and its twin would be equally canceled. I suppose it could be prudent to have two checking accounts with different debit cards and keep one as a backup in case one account becomes compromised. But I have never felt the need to go to this length of security.

So here it is: the methods by which I carry and access money on the Road. I have found that what I outlined above is a popular way of keeping and utilizing travel funds, as most travelers seem to rely on debit cards.

If a traveler is looking for a good bank to get keep their money in that has plenty of overseas branches, I would recommend HSBC - although I have not yet ever NEEDED to physically go to the bank while traveling and it never mattered to me that my bank is only located around Rochester, New York. So I have never found it to be pertinent to have my money in a bank that I can access overseas.

So that is about it. If you have anymore questions please do not hesitate to ask.

As always, take this travel tip and use it, or leave it to rot in the gutters of bad advice.

But either way Walk Slow,

Wade

Links to previous travelogue entries:

• Traveling New York City
• Back in Budapest from Balaton
• Vacation to Lake Balaton

Debit Cards for Travel
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Traveling New York City

Traveling New York City

If it is my intention to provide myself with a holistic, broad spectrum, and even impression of planet earth - and I am not sure if this is my intention - then I know that I must go to all places, whether I am drawn to them or not. I am not drawn to New York City.

But I know that the Big Apple is a major player in the modern human's perception of planet earth, and I know that I should live there at some point in my travels. This capstone requirement from Global College is providing me with the stark impetus to live and wander around New York City.
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Philadelphia, PA, USA- August 29, 2008
Travelogue -- Travel Photos
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So I have returned to the USA. I rode subways and walked through New York City a couple of nights ago. I became excited at what I observed:

New York City is just as foreign a landscape to me, a country boy, as most any foreign land that I have ever traveled to. Tall buildings, lights, garbage everywhere, multi-colored people speaking every language that I can imagine, foreign scripts adorning the storefronts, and the excitement of being somewhere that I have never been before.

I have the initial impression that New York City is unlike anywhere else on earth. I have three and a half months to explore it, and I propose to do so as if I would travel in any other country:

I am going to treat the Big City as if it were its own entity. I am going to treat it as if it were a broad slice of planet earth in microcosm. "All people from everywhere in the world are in New York City," raved a drunken Chilean to me a few weeks ago. He is correct.

"I have to say, I am a little disappointed that you would shy away from an adventure in an urban environment," insightfully comment a reader and friend by the name of Scott. He is also correct.

To travel across New York City is, perhaps, the equivalent of a mock-voyage across the entire world. Perhaps I should not loathe this time that I will have to be in New York? Perhaps I should view my position as one of privilege, for what other traveler would put themselves in such an expensive environment for so long if they did not have to?

I, for sure, would not be going to NYC if I did not have a university requirement to fulfill. What I once perceived as a hassle is quickly revealing itself as a god-send. I have 15 weeks to travel in New York City. Global College is providing me with an unlimited use public transportation pass. I foresee a colossal get-lost-game that will take me into the deep recesses of a city that I am told to be the world's most prominent multi-cultural center.

I will travel New York as I would anywhere else on the world. I will study the maps, learn the subway lines, meet the people, and write, write, write about it as if I were in a foreign land.

New York City is a foreign land.

I look at New York City on a map and I have no clue what is in that tangled mass of skyscrapers, roads, byways, and highways.

It is now time for me to find out.

And "finding out" just happens to be what I like to do most.

Brooklyn Ho!

Links to previous travelogue entries:

• Back in Budapest from Balaton
• Vacation to Lake Balaton
• August 15th Travel Anniversary

Traveling New York City
* Travel Blog Directory * Vagabond Journey.com * Travel Photos * Travel Questions and Answers

Back in Budapest from Balaton

Back in Budapest from Balaton

I arrived back in Budapest today and my friends at the Loft Hostel graciously set me up with a free bed. I am looking over these past three months of unintentional Eastern Europe travel with an overwhelming sense of preemptive nostalgia. I know that when I board that flight tomorrow it will be with deep, deep reservation.

I traveled up from Central America to Prague via New York and Ireland three months ago with the sole intention of making it to Turkey and the Middle East as fast as I possibly could. This did not quite happen like this.
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Budapest, Hungary- Late August, 2008
Travelogue -- Travel Photos
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I fell into an entire barrage of friends and good times in Eastern Europe at every stop. I quickly found myself full of smiles that I did not wish to potentially shed by moving on to another region of the world. It simply felt right to be where I was this summer: the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary were surprisingly good to me. The work came when it needed to and the good vibrations of friends and joyful cheer carried above all.

I am growing older, I know this. I needed another glimmer of unthinking youth; I needed to run streets late at night with wine in hand for the benefit of my own sanity and sense of temporal worth. I clearly acted my age at times, and it was comforting. It has been a while since I have been in position where I had a group friends like I did in Budapest.

But now I prepare for a semester of school in a city that I know nothing about and have scarcely a real friend. But there are a lot of people in New York, and plenty of opportunities for making friends. My interests have been drawn towards Islam, and there is a huge Muslim community in Brooklyn.

My head hangs low as I walk out of Budapest and Eastern Europe.

These travels did not work out as planned, but they did work out exactly as they had to.

On the windy paths of traveling you can expect nothing other than what you get, and, thankfully, this is usually just what you really want.

On to Brooklyn.

Farewell Budapest.

Links to previous travelogue entries:

• Vacation to Lake Balaton
• August 15th Travel Anniversary
• Bicycling to Romania

Back in Budapest from Balaton
* Travel Blog Directory * Vagabond Journey.com * Travel Photos * Travel Questions and Answers

Vacation to Lake Balaton

Vacation to Lake Balaton, Hungary

I suppose I have not yet made it to Romania.

Rather, I was got held up in a delightful net in Budapest and, deeming that it would be silly to peddle all the way to Romania just to turn around and peddle all the way back, I decided that I would take a vacation to Lake Balaton.

I am no longer surprised at my own sporadically itinerant Path. I do not even know where I am going.

I was offered a little paid employment in Budapest and, like any work scrounging vagabond, I took it. I got pretty well paid, too. But, as money is ultimately made to spend, I promptly blew my earnings on comfortable living and set up my tent (good fortune - or two spoiled Brits - had provided me with a real tent) in the expensive campgrounds of Lake Balaton. Life is good.

I have just been relaxing, swimming, exercising, riding my bicycle leisurely, and enjoying these days before I enter the concrete inferno of New York City.
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Keszthely, Hungary- August 22, 2008
Travelogue -- Travel Photos
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But I think some exterior events also occurred in my delay in Budapest that may have altered my Path in a larger capacity. . . . but dear friends and readers, I will have to write more of this later, as I am now on vacation.

Affordable internet scarce here, and I think that I am the better for it.

Taking a break, resting, relaxing, reading, reveling, meditating, pondering, reflecting, writing funny little poems to please myself, contemplating, swimming, not talking. Enjoying my week long vacation.

Walking Slow.


View Larger Map
Map of Lake Balaton

Links to previous travelogue entries:

• Bicycling to Romania
• Opening Ceremony Beijing Olympics
• International Study Travel

Vacation to Lake Balaton, Hungary
* Travel Blog Directory * Vagabond Journey.com * Travel Photos * Travel Questions and Answers

August 15th Travel Anniversary

August 15th Travel Anniversary

(This travelogue entry was written a couple of weeks ago.)

Today is the anniversary of the day that I walked off the farm and struck out on my own for the first time. It is also the first day that I have ever flown in an airplane.

August 15, 1999- I packed way too many bags full of way too many heavy things and departed from my paternal home in the banks of Lake Ontario by airplane for Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. I was wearing a cut up t-shirt, patchwork trousers, a mohawk, facial piercings, and was not even tattooed yet. I was 18 years old and going to Florida to study herpetology - reptiles. But what I found was the study of life - my own.

I can remember my feelings of all out exuberance on this day. The sky was blue with a few floaty clouds hanging out lazily, my mother was worryingly asking me if I had everything while trying to give me last resort supplies of snacks, my father and sister stood in the flanks patting me on the back and wishing me farewell.

My family clearly had no idea at that time that this was a charade that they would play out dozens upon dozens of times through the years to come. If they had, then they may not have bothered with initiating such elaborate goodbye celebrations, for I now expect them (I write this with a gentle smile).
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Budapest, Hungary- August 15, 2008
Travelogue -- Travel Photos
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This day - August 15, 1999 - set the course of my life. I loved the feeling of beng completely on my own, I love the separation of stepping onto an airplane and knowing that I would be port-holed off to another land in a matter of hours, and I loved the rather disconnected feeling of walking into a place that I did not know. Over the years I have had to keep upping the standards to get this thrill: two years in South America, three in Asia, eight months in Central America, flings all through Europe, and a good adventure in North Africa. I am still going on this route; I am still looking for this thrill of traveling to foreign parts. The excitement of travel has not diminished in the least for me over the years. In fact, the more I travel, the more I realize that I love traveling; the more places that I go to, the more I want to keep going.

I love this wandering life.

I am addicted to it.

If I had know that this would happen then I may have just stayed plump on the farm of my youth.

Travel is my love.

Links to previous travelogue entries:

• Bicycling to Romania
• Opening Ceremony Beijing Olympics
• International Study Travel

August 15th Travel Anniversary
* Travel Blog Directory * Vagabond Journey.com * Travel Photos * Travel Questions and Answers

Bicycling to Romania

Bicycling to Romania

These days of reception work at a hostel in Budapest are coming to an end. I only have twelve days until I should be in the concrete canary cage of New York City. I am going to have to breathe in a lot of fresh air now to last through these next few months of city living.

As I look at a map of Europe, I find that there is no fresher air than in Romania, and the bicycle is the best vehicle for the taking in of such air. So I am getting the bags packed, the emails written, and the blog posts up; I am getting ready to bicycle to Romania.
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Budapest, Hungary- August 15, 2008
Travelogue -- Travel Photos
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I bought a really good road atlas yesterday. The thing costs me $20. But I know that there is a huge deficit in the quality of a good road atlas compared to that of a bad one. I could have saved $7 and purchased a poor atlas, but then I would still have been paying $13 for a piece of crap. I do not like buying things, and, when I do, I try to buy the best quality things I can. For I know that needing to purchase a cheap thing multiple times to compensate for its poor quality is more expensive than spending a little money and buying a good thing once and using it for a long time. If I am going to go through the ardor of buying, I am going to buy something good.



Map of Romania

So I have a really good road atlas to Europe which includes Turkey, Syria, Armenia, Georgia, and parts of Iraq. This atlas even has the smaller routes numbered and labeled. It is amazing to me how many maps include roads without any semblance of a label. This is pointless. For how will I know when I am at an intersection if the route is not properly demarcated on my map?

I can't. I would have to guess.

Guess working directions in a car is one thing, on a bicycle it is quite another. When on a bike I do not want to have to guess if the road on my map is the one that I am riding on, as one wrong turn can take an entire day to correct. (But, then again, if I have no destination, I have no worries; if I have no worries, I do not need a map. But if I do happen to have a destination, then I want a good freaking map.) So I dropped a little money and bought an atlas that I can use for traveling in Europe for years to come.

I opened up this good road atlas yesterday and looked out at Romania: it was all grey mountains, skinny, wavy little lines masquerading as roads, and hardly any dots. The less dots you can find on a map, the fresher and more vibrant the air. I am in a hunt for good air, so I am going to ride out into the rocky, dotless land of Romania and track it down one lung full at a time.

Hopefully, I will become so full of air-substance that I can just float through these next few months of Big City traveling.

I have always dreamed of Romania. I have always dreamed of Gypsies, horse drawn wooden wagons, black felt hats, old dirt encrusted farmers, and rolling hills of perfect, glorious nothing.

Links to previous travelogue entries:

• Opening Ceremony Beijing Olympics
• International Study Travel
• Photo Copy Travel Guides

Bicycling to Romania
* Travel Blog Directory * Vagabond Journey.com * Travel Photos * Travel Questions and Answers

Opening Ceremony Beijing Olympics

Opening Ceremony Beijing Olympics

I was impressed with the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics; I was happy for China on their "coming out party" to the world. It was an interesting performance and keenly showed the degree to which China can organize and control large masses of people. It was almost frightening. Thousands of Chinese with Christmas lights strung around them running around a stadium collectively making designs of flowers, mountains, and shapes with their bodies used as virtual pixels is impressive. And the message was clear: China is grasping with both hands at the superpower title of the 21st century.
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Budapest, Hungary- August 14, 2008
Travelogue -- Travel Photos
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But as I was watching the opening ceremony of the Olympics on television at the Bubble Hostel in Budapest, a Dutch tourist sitting across the room from me said something to the effect of, "look at all the money they [the Chinese] spent on this performance when there are starving people sitting right outside the stadium."

I came to a start. Where did he get such a statement from?

"What people are starving?" I asked him a little too sharply.

"The people of China."

"No, the people of China are not starving; actually, they are doing very well for themselves," I retorted in an unbecoming priggish manner.

"No they are not," countered the Dutchman.

I then told him that I had traveled China from stem to stern for a year and a half, lived in a monastery in Qinghai, hitch-hiked from Mongolia to Vietnam, and went into the middle of nowhere in Yunnan and have yet to see any of these starving people. Conversely, I mostly saw people working hard, being industrious, smoking cigarettes, drinking beer, eating food, driving trucks, digging in mines, picking tea, riding bicycles, driving cars, laughing, spitting, visiting prostitutes, and fighting. It is my assumption that starving people would not do any of these things.

The Dutchman did not reply.

I was taken in by the Dutchman's comments not only because he had never been to China before and did not have any backing to his statement, but mostly because he was merely mimicking the voice of the Western media. A voice which seems hell bent on showing the rags of a nation as the whole for the amusement and pride of a Western audience. I think that we are on the precipice of a new Red Scare:

"China violates human rights!" "China does not let Chinese people go to church!" "China kicked people out of their homes to build things for the Olympics!" "China is a dictatorship!" "China is corrupt!" "Chinese people are going hungry while millions of dollars are being spent on people bobbing up and down in boxes to celebrate the Olympics!" "The Uigurs are uprising!" "Xinjiang is a hotbed of fundamentalist Islam!" "The Olympic tourists are in danger!"

I have been watching these reports on the BBC for the past few days, and it is my impression that the West is becoming vastly insecure about the success that China is obtaining. The streets of even the biggest or most far out Chinese cities tend to be relatively clean and safe, the businesses seem to be doing well in much of the country, and the people are active and industrious. I cannot say the same for my own country.

In fact, I have seen more hungry and destitute people in the Greyhound bus stations of the USA than I ever had in China. I grew up near a city whose downtown area is absolutely squalid, full of beggars, and most of the shops have long ago closed down and boarded up their windows. In lieu of this, the bustling, active, and generally well-kept Chinese city came as a surprise to me.

I fail to understand why journalism need to uncover some obscure point of exploitation and horror to be considered viable? Why does Western society take criticism and cynical-ism as indications of intelligence? No, Western journalists are not sitting in the comfortable homes of middle class Chinese families, drinking tea, riding in cars, and talking about how safe, clean, and prosperous China has become (true, this would be a little boring). Rather, they are finding every scrap and speck of dust on the underbelly of China to show it as a human rights violating, oppressive society.

If the Olympics were in the USA this year would foreign journalist make reports about the crackheads in the Greyhound stations? Would they talk of all of the visitors that are being mugged in the streets? Would they show the USA as a poor, human rights violating country? Would they run stories about how a gang of police once busted down my door with their guns drawn and beat me up because I had just moved into an all black part of a city and they wanted to find out what I was up to? Would they focus on the squalor and downfall of the Great Lakes cities? I don't think they would.

All governments violate human rights, this seems to be a mutually inclusive part of governing. I am taken aback that George W. Bush and the leaders of Western Europe can even look China in the eye, let alone deliver lectures on human rights.

But I do know that China is awful, China is polluted, China is totalitarian, and China is gross, that parts of China are on the brink of environmental collapse, and that China violates human rights, but China is doing what works - at least for now - for China. The lens of Western culture cannot be applied equally to every culture in the world. The people of the West seem to be raised with the virtually incorruptible notion that their ways are best (even if they do not realize it), that their system of governing should be the modal for the world, and any other cultural variants should be made Western; all while pretending to accept and appreciate cultural diversity. Costumes, songs, crafts, and tourism is not culture. Culture is the feeling of repulsion that one feels when they cannot understand the ways of another society; it is the drive to say that something that other people do is wrong, unjust, and violating. One's own socialization never surfaces more vehemently than while criticizing the ways of another culture.

It makes me laugh to meet Western people who boast of their cultural awareness and openness while criticizing Islamic countries for their treatment of women, complaining that China violates human rights, while talking about democracy coming to the Middle East as if this is beneficial for the people, and taking a stand in "popular" global issues that I assume they know only from television, print media, and what is currently fashionable. If someone starts whining to me about human rights issues in a far away land that they know only through newspaper clippings, TV news, and magazine articles I cannot help but to wonder how they really know what they are talking about. Really, how do they know?

I don't even know and I been to many of these places.

It is my impression that you either accept cultures for what they are - for better or for worse - or stomp out the incense and acquiesce with the mono-cultural foundations of the ideology of your own culture. I would never berate someone from the back-country or south of the USA for being culturally insensitive. You either take a country and a culture for what it is, or you don't. I do not brag about being culturally accepting; I know that I am not. But I believe in what I experience rather than what runs across the CNN, the BBC, or from the lips of a dreadlocked fellow in a Tibetan clothing shop.

Sure, I don't understand many aspects of other cultures. Many things that I experience in other lands seem pretty stupid to me. But just because something seems stupid does not make it unfounded. I believe that most cultures in the world have sense. Yes, I am baffled by the fact that it takes five grown Indian men in a shop to bag a single sack of tea, I cannot for the life of me figure out how Japanese people think, I don't know why I need to act like a macho-ass in Latin America to prevent all guys in a fifty mile radius from trying to pick up my girlfriend, and I find the Three Gorges Dam repulsive. But I have faith that cultures do things for a reason, as silly and wrong as these reasons may seem to me.

I admit that I am a socialized, acculturated human being. I am not culturally defaced. I inherently know that I carry with me an entire truck load of ingrained stupidity. It is my impression that a multi-cultural perspective means being able to accept and identify your own culture as much as all others. This means knowing that YOUR own culture is just as stupid, wrong, misplaced, and backwards as every other one on the planet. It means that if you feel revolted by the practices of another culture that you should turn right around because the people of that culture probably feel just as revolted about you. A multi-cultural perspective means being able to shrug your shoulders, look on, and accept what you have been socialized to believe is wrong. It means recognizing that not all people who live in mud huts without money are poor.

China governs and makes decisions based upon what works well for China. They are Chinese and they take care of themselves as Chinese people always have. Their socialization is different than mine. They often seem stupid, wrong, rude, and intolerable. But I love China for precisely these reasons: I am taken aback in situations where all of the Chinese people around me seem to perceive as being normal.

"I think the Three Gorges Dam is good," a Chinese girl once said to me like a robot.

If a Chinese lady tries to cut in front of me in a grocery line I put my elbow in her chest and tell her to back off. This feels wrong to me, but this is how it is done in China. I can remember reading in an ethnography once about how the anthropologist hated the society that he was researching because of the ways that they treated each other. He found that the ways that he was socialized to treat people had no regard in the culture that he was living in. For months he lived on the periphery of the society completely exasperated, until a fortunate event happened: he had finally had enough of living like himself and began to live like his research subjects. One day he was laying in his hammock and a man just walked up and overturned him out of it upon the ground. The man then sat in his hammock like it was a normal practice just take whatever he wanted without asking - it was. But after months of being bullied the anthropologist had enough and he knocked the man out of the hammock who had just debunked him moments before. To the anthropologist's surprise the man was not angry, and he just got up off of the ground and calmly walked away. In this way that anthropologist learned that he, and not the culture he was studying, was out of step. From that day on he was accepted as being a part of the village, and he continued to overturn men from their hammocks.

"The nail that sticks out gets pounded back in," wrote Chairman Mao. It is my feeling that this has always been the Chinese way. It seems un-accepting, mean spirited, and even fascist to me - especially as I am a nail that sticks out in my own culture - but this seems to work for the Chinese.

I hate discussions like the one I had with the Dutchman, but I had had enough. For days I have been keeping an eye on the BBC and watching the Olympics as I work at the Bubble Hostel. I have become appalled at how the international media is portraying China.

But should I expect anything else? Really, should the media of any country in the world broadcast stories that are not consistent with the preconceived notions of their audience? Should they really give an impression of the world that is not their own?

Should I expect the Dutchman to not make the statement that he did?

Perhaps I need a lesson in accepting the stupidity of my own culture as well as that of others?

Links to previous travelogue entries:

• International Study Travel
• Photo Copy Travel Guides
• How to Drink Absinthe

Opening Ceremony Beijing Olympics
* Travel Blog Directory * Vagabond Journey.com * Travel Photos * Travel Questions and Answers

International Study Travel

International Study Travel

My friend Andy the Hobotraveler has been on me for some time to share the specifics of how I have been traveling the past 9 years; namely, the ways in which studying internationally has enabled me to continuously move about the globe. For a long time I did not think that there was anything significant about how I have acquired the means to travel: I work a little, take financial aid a little, have won a few big scholarships, work a little more, write words, and work a little more. This all seemed very straight forward to me and I found no real reason to write about this in detail. But a few days ago I began thinking of the logistics of how I have been making up my bean money, and it became apparent that it is not as sluiced down and obvious as I have previously thought.
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Budapest, Hungary- August 12, 2008
Travelogue -- Travel Photos
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It struck me that there is a flip side to the reasons that I have been sporadically studying for so long (my first time in college was after I got kicked out of high school in January of 1999) and this is that I have found that I can fund my travels when I go broke by taking semesters of international study. Putting aside for a moment all of the other benefits of international study - such as learning language, cultural studies, and having experiences that are not really available to the lone traveler - I have found that through enrolling in study abroad programs I can acquire the means to live for extended periods of time in foreign lands comfortably. Up to here I have been awarded over $60,000 in scholarship, grants, and financial aid (though the high costs of Global College greatly offsets this rather large seeming amount), have been able to find somewhat comfortable living arrangements, and have had the time and space to work and earn money in the countries that I've studied in. In part, because of intermittent bouts of international study, I have been able to keep moving about the world so continuously without always needing to get my hands dirty.

With international study comes living stipends. It is as simple as this. I found that I could use scholarships, grants, and student loans to not only pay for my education but also my living expense. I have also realized that I can live far cheaper than the average student and tend to be able to use this money to travel vastly farther. So, with a certain amount of diligence and restraint, the living stipend for one semester of international study can easily get a traveler six months of wandering.

The time, space, and personal contacts that are inherent to studying and having a "base" in a country also means that the possibilities for working - particularly teaching English - are far greater. Each dollar that a traveler can make in their travels is a dollar more that they can put between themselves and going home. I take work wherever I can get it.

Another side advantage to studying is that tax breaks are available to students based upon the cost of their educational expense. I do not make enough money each year to have any tax liability - I do not even bother to have taxes taken out of my paychecks when working around the USA - though if I study for at lease one semester a year I find that I can get a "refund" of around a thousand dollars. This extra money is a fifth of my yearly expenses.

Therefore, it was my goal and intention to stretch my undergraduate education out as long as I possibly could. So I studied for a semester in Japan and then traveled for a year and a half, then studied for a semester in China and then spent the summer in Central America, just to return to Asia and study for a semester in India to return to China, and so on - ever splicing periods of straight travel with financial aid, student loan, and grant sponsored international study. I have found this to be a good formula for world travel.

Though I really do enjoy these bouts of study, especially as much of it was done independently and I was able to travel where I wanted and study what ever struck my fancy. Studying also allows me to break up the routine of continuous travel, learn more, and have access within a culture that I could not otherwise have. Being a student also provides a traveler with an identity, which is important if you really want to talk with people, do interviews, and find out about a place and the folks who live there. The guise of the international student is one that almost every culture can accept as permittable. If you tell someone that you are a student and study culture then they are far more apt to tell you about themselves, what they do, and bear with all of your stupid questions. The international student is also a very benign and accepted identity when trying to penetrate the outer walls of a culture: you are not a stupid tourist, you are not a suspicious journalist, you are not a fear evoking government official, you are safe, open, and eager-to-learn student. An easily understandable and obvious identity is often needed to look behind the mask of culture. Everyone needs to be someone, and being a student is a good way to open up the floodgates to being taught.

The writer is the perpetual idiot, and, likewise, the implications behind being a student are very similar: it is the job of the student to learn because they do not know anything. I have found it easy to prove to people that my vessel is empty by telling them that I am a student. Gratefully for me, many people around the world seem to like filling up empty vessels. I can only learn if I can prove that I know nothing. Tell someone that you are a student and you find yourself with a wild card that sanctions stupid questions and the learning that inherently comes from such.

I want to keep up my one semester a year pattern of travel. Luckily for me, if I finish up my B.A. these next few months in Brooklyn I have an entire world of grad school to travel on. I essentially get to begin my studies all over again. I have another four year degree that I can stretch out to eight, a myriad of possibilities for international study, and something that I could not get as an undergrad: funding for research. Yes, grad students get paid to study.

I look at what I have haphazardly accomplished during the shaky ebb and flow of my undergrad education: I have studied in over seven countries on five continents, wrote a decent thesis on Traditional Japanese Tattooing, and have assembled a modest, yet solid body of published work. Because I unintentionally gave myself the time and space to develop while working on my B.A. I have accomplished far more than the average 22 year old graduate.

I think that with the proper amount of diligence I can repeat what I did in undergrad in graduate school, and do so with a large amount of funding. I think that I may be able to continue making a good portion of my travel funds - and continue collecting tax refunds - by regularly taking one semester of school a year.

(Yet I do not understand why anthropologists need funding to conduct their studies. As with only a couple big bags of rice, a few nice machetes, and a truckload of Marlboro cigarettes an ethnographer can become welcomed in almost any primitive society on earth.)

But the flip-side to this travel strategy is that I am buried in student debt. But as my mother, as well as my grandmother before her, would always say: "You can't get blood from a stone." If I remain a poor man then I have no worries, if I someday happen to make money I should conceivably have enough money to pay off these loans.

I am not concerned by mere fetters.

Links to previous travelogue entries:

• Photo Copy Travel Guides
• How to Drink Absinthe
• Round Trip Plane Ticket from Budapest to New York

International Study Travel
* Travel Blog Directory * Vagabond Journey.com * Travel Photos * Travel Questions and Answers

Photo Copy Travel Guides

Photocopy Travel Guides

Instead of dropping a third of a hundred dollars on a heavy, often useless, and misleading travel guide, Mira from LadytheTramp.com came up with a good alternative:

Photocopy sections of the guidebook that you want and forget about the rest.

Alternative to Travel Guide Books

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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Budapest, Hungary- August 10, 2008
Travelogue -- Travel Photos
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Finding travel guides are easy: all you have to do is walk into a public library, a hostel, a hotel, or find another traveler that has one. Travel guides are everywhere. So you just have to find one, borrow it, take it to a copy machine, and you get the sections that you want for a fraction of the cost of the original. These scraps of guides are also fully disposable, as you only have to throw the pages away after you have used up the information that is printed on them.

Photocopying pages from travel guides is also one way that you can put together a defacto travel notebook that is full of relevant information that you print off of the internet, write down, or copy. More about travel notebooks at, Travel Guidebooks: to use or not to use

Good tip, Mira. Visit her site for more travel information, advice, and tips from a woman who has been on a multi-year pilgrimage around the world.

Lady the Tramp.com

Links to previous travelogue entries:

• How to Drink Absinthe
• Round Trip Plane Ticket from Budapest to New York
• Artists, WIne, Cafes, Bars in Budapest

Photocopy Travel Guides
* Travel Blog Directory * Vagabond Journey.com * Travel Photos * Travel Questions and Answers

How to Drink Absinthe

How to Drink Absinthe

"When I drink absinthe I go crazy," spoke the Magician.

I took this as an invitation to drink absinthe.

"The last time I drank absinthe," the Magician continued, "I woke up with in the morning with blood running down my arm and had a broken fist."

He then showed me his still mangled knuckles. "What the hell happened?" I asked.

"I beat up a couple of geeks in the middle of the night at a bus stop," his story continued. "I asked them if they wanted to see a magic trick and they said no. So I beat the f'ck out of them." And then he momentarily paused before adding, "F'cking geeks."
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Budapest, Hungary- August 10, 2008
Travelogue -- Travel Photos
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I could tell that he felt bad about this exploit, so I tried to make him feel better by saying, "Don't feel bad, all animals do such things."

A smile then came to the Magician's face. "You're right man! I am the alpha-male and I beat the shit out of those geeks. F'cking geeks needed to be beat up." He was laughing now and just about thumping his chest like our lower ape brethren. "Those geeks will never go out at night again!"

I was laughing too.

Beer in glass that looks like an over grown science beaker with wooden support.

We were at the rooftop bar, which is a huge drunkard joint on the roof of some warehouse in central Budapest. It was night, and the little circle of artists and expats that I had befriended were raging all around us. The Magician and I first began talking after a young Hungarian waiter let me know of his skills in the arts of illusion. So I watched the Magician amaze a young and squeally Hungarian girl in a short skirt. He would show her a trick, she would squeal and clap her hands like a fish fed sea-lion, I would watch curiously.

As the night wore on I eventually ended up at the side of the Magician. We became fast friends. He is from the countryside of Hungary but spoke English very well. He started doing his tricks on me. I became amazed.

His illusions were well performed.

The Magician showed me with a few of the hundreds of card tricks that he knows, and I laughed heartily. "I like it that you do magic," I said, "It is a sign that you enjoy people laughing."

When people become amazed over a magic trick a smile automatically comes to their faces, they forget everything else in the world, and become consumed in laughter and inquisition. I watched as the Magician lit up the faces of our entire circle of friends throughout the night.


It then became time for me to be going home. I previously had a real late night and did not get to bed until 8AM that morning. I had just come out to this bar to buy Viv a birthday drink and because I wanted to make good on Nilo buying me a few drinks the night before. I plan was to pay up, share a drink or two with friends, and get a good night of sleep back at the Bubble. Then I met Tomas and my puritan intentions vanished. I told him that I was leaving. He said no.

"I want you to name any card, any card you want," he proposed, "and if that card is upside down in one of the decks of cards that are in my bag [which was under the table and far out of reach] you will have to stay."

I took him up on the bet knowing that I was going to loose. I did.

I called out a nine of hearts and the Magician reached down and grabbed his backpack, took out a boxed deck of cards, opened it, and fanned them out. The nine of hearts was the only card that was face up. I had to stay.

So I bought the Magician a beer and we went back to talking about love, life, Gypsy girls, and the rolling waves of 'time-pass.' As we talked he would be making things appear from his ears, making things disappear, and doing a half dozen other tricks without loosing a beat. We were becoming friends.

Then a group of nerdy Spanish mariachis walked up to our group on the roof-top bar and I heard the Magician mutter "geeks" under his breathe with a sneer, and I thought that he was about to smash their guitars upon their funny mariachi hat heads. I stood in waiting for the scene to ensue, but he had not had any absinthe in him on this night, and was therefore somewhat in control of his geeks beating urges.

The Magician was a big man. He was not too tall but his shoulders were broad and he carried himself as if he were a giant. His face was hard, but his smile was broad. His eyes danced with all of the excitements and emotions of life. His voice was deep, loud, and slightly muffled. He sounded much like a mummy yelling from behind the shrouds of his wrapper. The Magician always made eye contact when he spoke, and he knew how to lead people into looking in the direction that he chose. He also reveled in the up and down extremes of living - he was either joyous, angry, unruly happy or sad and withdrawn. I had the impression that you were either Tomas' friend or his enemy, a good guy or a bad guy, on one side or the other. His lines were cut bare.

When the Magician invited me out for drinks on the next Monday, I graciously accepted.

The rest of the weekend then passed with me getting a little much needed sleep and some work finished. Then I received an email from him telling me where to meet. I did, though was a little late due to unexpected work obligations. He was angry at me for not being on time, but we embraced none the less and went to a street side bar together smiling.

We sat down and ordered two beers. The Magician said that he would pay for them for me because I bought him some beer the night before. I was happy about this as the prices were far beyond my grasp. We were drinking at a nice place; the kind that I seldom frequent. The beer that arrived at our table was Belgian and came in a two foot tall thin glass that needed a wooden support to hold it up. The glass looked more like a Frankenstein science beaker than a beer mug. I had never seen a usable drinking glass like this before, and Tomas had to tell me how to drink from it.

"Just pick the whole thing up, wood and all."

I picked the awkward contraption up and hesitantly drank from it. It tried to do so coolly as I did not wanting to embarrass myself. To my surprise I found the odd beaker of beer manageable.

Tomas and I talked smoothly. He is a man who could sit across a table from another man, drink beer, and just talk the night away. I find that I often miss this sort of man to man interaction. Erik the Pilot and I would once sit at the kitchen table of his mother's home every weekend just talking, playing cards, and drinking beer. I believe that such interaction is important for the purging of manly souls.

I was enjoying my time with the Magician. As we talked he would be pulling things out of his ears, making things disappear, and doing some amazing card tricks. His eyes would light up as I would laugh riotously at his illusions. He showed me a few of his easier tricks and called me his brother.

We soon moved over to another bar that was located in the depths of an old wine cellar that was far out of the tourist circuit of Budapest. This little tavern was run by a stout little old lady with white curly hair. She wore a loose flowing flowery old lady dress and probably had slippers on. She served us two beers and we drank them with relish. Tomas showed me some more tricks and we talked about graffiti and the writers of Budapest. He then launched into stories about the reasons why he cannot play poker:

"The last time I was the dealer in poker I dealt the last two guys in full houses but left the deciding card to chance. The guys did not like this too much."

We laughed.

He then told me to wait for a minute as he walked away from the table. He then returned with w big smile on his face. Before I could ask him what he was so smiley about a platter of drinks was delivered by the old lady. Upon this platter was two shots, two sugar cubes, two teaspoons, and two beers.

"Absinthe," the Magician whispered sharply with mystical reverence.

I nodded my head coolly. He then taught me how to drink absinthe properly.

"You take the spoon like this," he said, "and you put the sugar cube on it and dip it in the absinthe. Then once the sugar has soaked up the liquid take it out."

I did as I was instructed.

He then lit our teaspoons of absinthe sugar cubes on fire with a cigarette lighter. We then watched the sugar burst into flames and the cube soon began bubbling and turning black. The Magician was in the thorough of a sort of mystical reverie. His eyes could not stray from the bubbling sugar and the flames burning like a gel over the absinthe that he knew would take him out of his own mind.

I had drank absinthe before, but not like this. All of a sudden the Magician dropped the flaming sugar cube and teaspoon into the greater shot of absinthe. The flame extinguished and he removed the spoon, leaving the sugar to drop into the bottom of the glass. He was smiling manically as he picked up the cigarette lighter and lit the shot up in flames. He passed the lighter to me and I did the same. We then said some brotherly words, toasted, blew our the flame, and drank the hot absinthe down in a single gulp.

When hot absinthe goes down into the body it can be felt in almost every limb. You feel it go into your mouth, down your throat, into your belly, through your veins, being pumped out by your heart to your very fingers and toes. It feels good.

Tomas then let out a big "Ahhhh" of relief as the warm liquid move through his body and we clenched hands in arm wrestling fashion over the table. This shaking of fists was the bonding of brothers.

We then continued drinking and sharing secrets. I would tell him a few yarns of the Open Road and he would teach me more magic tricks. We opened up our hearts in a manly way as we drank in the far back of the dark wine cellar. Another beer was then finished. We kept talking, and I gave the Magician an idea for a tattoo. He nearly jumped up in the air as my suggestion sunk in. He excitedly told me that he was going get it etched into his body. Then he gave me that smile again.

The absinthe smile.

Before I knew it another platter was placed before us by the bustle evening gowned old lady and Tomas was again mesmerized. The prior even then reoccurred, and we sat there for a moment in the cluster-phobic cellar just breathing and feeling the strength of that drink. Fingers, toes, mind, and soul were now electrified.

"Man, I'm drunk!" the magician roared for all the tavern to hear. He was. To my credit I had a level head enough to remember this tale. Luckily for my chosen profession, I possess an incredibly high tolerance to alcohol.

The Magician then invited me over to his house to stay the night. I initially agreed to the arrangement. But as we finished our last drinks and got flushed out of the cellar it became apparent that the night was still a puppy - the clock in the church tower only rang eleven thirty. As we walked I told the Magician that I was just going to go back to my own room. He became enraged.

This only made me want to part company with him all the more.

He yelled and said that we would not be brothers anymore if I did not go home with him. I stood my ground and made a motion to leave him and return to the Pest side of the Danube. He called to me and I walked back to him. The Magician was my friend. When I got close enough to him he quickly clenched both of his hands around my neck. I was being choked.

On this absinthe night in Budapest, I had clearly become the f'cking geek.

(To the credit of the Magician, let it be known that he spent his working days braving the rounds of the IT call center. I understood his rage. All call center employees probably need to beat a geek every now and then.)

Links to previous travelogue entries:

• Round Trip Plane Ticket from Budapest to New York
• Artists, WIne, Cafes, Bars in Budapest
• Global College LIU Graduation Requirements

How to Drink Absinthe
* Travel Blog Directory * Vagabond Journey.com * Travel Photos * Travel Questions and Answers

Round Trip Plane Ticket from Budapest to New York

Round Trip Plane Ticket from Budapest to New York

I have just purchased a round trip plane ticket from Budapest to New York City and then back to Budapest for around one thousand US dollars. I usually don't go in for round-trip tickets but the cost of a one way flight from Budapest to New York was the same price, or was more. I looked online and made the round of the travel agents here in Hungary, and this proved to be universally true: the round trip is the same price as the one way ticket. So I got two tickets for the price of one and now have an escape route from New York City if I choose to come back this way and finish the bicycle journey to Turkey. At least I know that I will not be trapped behind the iron curtain of rising prices of plane tickets.

So I am going to stinky old NYC to find the curiosities that are hidden on the other side of an urban mask that I find so wretched.

I am going to work on completing my university degree with Global College LIU in Brooklyn. The words of a handful of commenters on this blog played no small role in directing me down this Path. I must say that I probably would have rode through the university road block and gave up completing my degree if it were not for a few wise words that came at the right time.

On the advice and wisdom of a few good friends and readers, I have realized that three months and a lot of work in NYC is not a lot to sacrifice in the face of all of the years that I have been a university student. To cap it all off, to finally take a degree, would also probably make me happy. "Finish school, you'll like the feel of accomplishment," wrote a reader by the tag of ".g." I think he is correct. I tend to be very adapt at starting projects, and I find myself pretty decent at carrying them out, but I find that I am overwhelmingly deficient in the ability to complete projects. International study at university was perhaps the largest project that I have yet commenced. I may as well finish it off and pat myself on the back with the knowledge that I will never have to finish anything else ever again because I would have the knowlege that I did accomplish something.

As it stands now, I have not accomplished anything.

"Go finish, just so you can say you finished," wrote Andy the Hobotraveler. Yes, I think I will do just this. 112 university credits mean nothing if you do not have a degree. When asked if I have a degree, replying "almost" is about as meaningful as saying that I never went to university at all. It is a rather silly state of affairs when the entire weight of doing a multi-year task is held completely on whether or not you finish the last few months.

But I suppose an "almost" finished sweater cannot be worn, an "almost" chaste woman is not a virgin, and an "almost" finished degree is not a university education. When it comes down to it, "almost" has little real meaning when responding to an interrogative question. "Yes" or "no" are the only choices.
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Budapest, Hungary- August 9, 2008
Travelogue -- Travel Photos
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So I will return to New York to work towards completing my degree with Global College, Long Island University so that I can say, "yes, I do have a university education, and you can see how I am using it by sleeping with my head in the mud and making $10 a day writing penny and nickle magazine articles and blogging." But I do have a secret: I really love going to school, I love doing research, I love writing silly theses that noone should ever read, and I am really longing for a library that has lots of good old books. A part of me wants to go back to school in Brooklyn just for fun.

I have never really enjoyed NYC on my previous trips through there. New York was always just a transfer point to other destinations. The longest that I have ever stayed there - outside of sleeping under the fake palm trees in JFK's terminal 5 - is one night spent over at my old China friend Jojo's apartment. But I sense that extreme feelings about something often have the freighening tendency to flip extremes. The greatest love affairs that I have ever witnessed began with mutual hatred, the greatest of joys often begin with sorrow, and I know that the places that I long for the most are often the ones that I concurrently hate.

It is my impression that love and hate are closely related. Extreme feelings become balanced in their antinym. It seems as if everything in the world moves towards balance. Extremes flip extremes.

I hate New York City.

But I wonder if I will find myself loving my time there?

"That's right, Chinatown, NYC is only 2 miles from Brooklyn. That might peak your interest and make things a little more interesting. It is not Beijing, but for a couple of months, it's something," wrote Scott. He is right. I could conceivably get a room in Chinatown, find an old man to tuter me in Chinese, eat Chinese food, and be happy amongst people that I really like being around and looking at. No, Chinatown NYC is not China, but at least it is something.

"I say, go ahead and finish the degree. It is more than a piece of paper, it is an accomplishment that no one can take away from you. Like travel, it is yours for ever," Scott continued in his comment. I believe this also to be true. A university degree does not NEED to be utalized for anything to be valuable. It would be mine, my education would be mine, and I could use it for myself.

"Have you heard the expression “Luck (success) is what happens when preparation meets opportunity”?" wrote Baron. I will always remember these words because they are full of wisdom. Without preparation opportunities are all too often too discreit to notice let alone grasp.

"You are young and resilient now but you don't know what the future holds and a college degree could help you. You may regret not completing college but I doubt if the opposite holds true," Diane wrote. Yes, I am bullheaded. I know that I can just take my return ticket back to Budapest and I will be in the same place that I stand four months later but without this weight of indecision hanging upon me.

"You could live in a snowbank for 4months if you had to," wrote .g. Yes, I probably will. When I set foot in NYC I will only have around $1500. This is not enough money for one month. My wits will have to be as keen as they have ever been and my ears always kept down to the track.

"Note, maybe you can live in big Five Star Hotels in New York and so the Hideout thing, strange as it sounds, big hotels understand paying for ads, better than the small ones you have been in," wrote Andy.

"Perhaps living and working at a NYC hostel would work out," another option pointed out by Craig from Travelvice.com.

"If you're that close to finishing anything, see it through. What's the worst that could happen?" urged Greg from the Poets' Corner Hostel.

These comments are all full of wisdom and I really appreciate that that they were sent in my direction. It takes time to write a comment on a blog, it takes effort and will to share advice. It is really special that so many people feel the urge to push me through this road block.

I am awestruck. Thank you for sharing your wit, wisdom, and experience. Thank you for preventing a wandering man from becoming chastened by his own wanderings.

Links to previous travelogue entries:

• Artists, WIne, Cafes, Bars in Budapest
• Global College LIU Graduation Requirements
• Hostel Work in Budapest

Round Trip Air Ticket from Budapest to New York
* Travel Blog Directory * Vagabond Journey.com * Travel Photos * Travel Questions and Answers

Artists, WIne, Cafes, Bars in Budapest

Artists, Wine, Cafes, Bars in Budapest

Friends. Yes, I fell into the glorious mucky brim of a big pool of mad friends here in Budapest. The artists. I was walking back to the Bubble after a somewhat stale feeling bar-night which consisted of shot-gunning cheap tall boy beers in the streets with two affable young Manchester brothers and dude from Texas, and running straight into three Finnish icebergs (though it was good fun watching the Brisher boys trying to warm the hearts of these frigid women).

I shrugged my shoulders as I was walking home with the Brits, laughing, joking, and feeling quite satisfied with myself for not having drank away too much of my travel funds. I then heard the chimes of a group of people singing a Pink Floyd song coming from a street-side cafe and stopped short.
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Budapest, Hungary- August 9, 2008
Travelogue -- Travel Photos
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I began to sing too.

A kid with dark features, long hair, and a skinny face was playing the guitar with a two girl choir. They all waved with smiles on their singing faces and invited us to sit down. We took up the invitation and I bought a really cheap beer. The musicians played as we all sang. When the song came to a close they introduced themselves and the rest of the wild-eyed kids who were sitting around the tables of the cafe.

The Manchester brothers soon went back to the hostel, but I stayed at the cafe smiling into my beer.

I knew right then that these wild kids could potentially be friends worthy of exploits and many, many written words. After two weeks of romping with this bunch, my initial suspicions proved correct. Stories came and stories have been written. Therefore, I will offer you, dear readers, an introduction to them, just in case you find yourselves lone and bored on a Budapest night you will know who to stay away from.

The man with the guitar was named Nilo, a Pakistani/ Irish Brit who ended up - somehow - in Budapest eight years ago and made his home in the Gypsy quarter. He was a musician and extremely charismatic, though his body build was slight, he was not very tall - maybe five foot seven or eight - and had an amazingly slinky body frame that seemed to always be slightly bending and churning as he spoke. He reminded me of an antagonistic cartoon gutter rat. But Nilo possessed a special quality of social directness that showed his pure confidence. His words came out clean and without a tint of self doubt or indecision. He was a prime example of a deliberate man. The rest of the group seemed to listen to his words and respected his opinions. The girls also liked him, and they always seemed to be sitting upon his lap with arms flung around his shoulders.

Befitting of the confident way that he spoke, his words were often ingenious as they flowed out of him with flowery hand gestures, well accentuated head movements, and slightly exaggerated facial expressions. When he spoke, his skinny face would jet around in starts and well orchestrated stops, as if he was putting on a show and sought to keep us all in suspense. And his audience could not help but to listen to his verbal sea of hilarious drunken dead-pan English logic. He made sense. He carried himself with roguish degree of class. Nilo had something of the pirate in him.

Though to the despair of whoever was in ear-shout, our humor just so happens to blend together well, and we would match each other bad joke for bad joke until our audience could bear our bad jokes no longer. Thus given, the barroom was Nilo's theatre, a long table full of beer his stage, and drunks his audience. This man, with his long, silky black hair tied back in a pigtail, his sharp little goatee that framed the sharp contours of his face, his large and expressive eyebrows, and his almost scripted eloquence of speech was the heart of this little group of late night drunken artists.

Sitting upon Nilo's lap at the cafe was Etta - or at least that is what I have named her - who was another Brit who carried herself in a rather dry sauce sort of British way. She was very pretty by any man's standard, had thick black hair, a light facial complexion, and would playfully churned her face up cynically like a feminine manner of bulldog. She seemed to know what to do, and how to do it. I know nothing more about her other than I enjoy her company.

Paired up in a womanly duo with Etta was Viv. Viv was a Hungarian stage director, and, from the way that she spent money in the bar, I must conclude that she obtained a good deal of success. Viv was 28 years old, was around five foot five, shaped in waves, possessed a pair of bright eyes, and a magnetic pair of feet that seemed to be everywhere at once. I have no idea how one woman had the ability to draw so much attention to her feet. Or, perhaps, it was only my attention that was being drawn (but as the narrator of this tale, that which takes my fancy becomes the fancy of the entire story). But regardless, Viv had a good energy about her that unfortunately seemed to attract every Frenchman within a fifty mile radius. Viv would appear in a room, brighten it with her smile, and then be set upon by an entire pond of Frenchies. I have seen this. It is seriously distressing. But Viv does not seem to mind and laps up the French attention like a thirsty kitten. When one Frenchman seemed to bore her she simply moved on to the next, and so on until she completed a flirting circle back to the first - just to start over again. But I do not think that there is a man alive - French or otherwise - who could repel the charm of this woman. She moved gracefully, had little blue eyes that shine bright, was perfectly plump, and seemed to know how to make men fall before her oddly attractive feet.

Sitting next to Viv at the cafe was Harry. Harry was born in Madagascar, was a young thirty, looked startlingly like Lenny Kraviz, had a kind face, a light brown skin tone, and gave off an energy that was a testament to honest sincerity. Befitting of a man who resembles Lenny Kraviz, he was also a very fancy dresser, and adorned himself with tight knee length stretch pants, a necklace replete with big wooden beads, a menagerie of bracelets flowing over his wrists and hands, a pair of slick buckle up leather shoes, and topped this all off with a short poofy afro. Harry simply looked cool. He was also a linguistic genius, and spoke Hungarian, English, French, Spanish, and whatever language they speak in Madagascar with native fluency. To listen to him talk was like hearing the voice of Babel's tower, and he often transitioned between multiple tongues during the course of making a single statement.

This man was a genius. "Harry, you could be a lawyer!" his mother would tell him. He could. But I think that he would rather live his life well.

Next to Harry was a Hungarian woman who I will just call Poison. I have not seen her since this first meeting at the cafe. She was probably around 32 years old and was an archaeology professor at the university. She was long, thin, and had brunette colored hair that was cut into a flapper bob. She also wore a short cut black dress, and obviously knew how to move, speak, and, essentially, make herself attractive to the opposite sex. I initially thought that she was Harry's girlfriend, as they would give each other little kisses every once in a while and rub each other's legs. But then she began getting a little closer to me as we talked about archaeology. I was sitting in a chair on the opposite side of her as Harry, and I soon began to doubt if she had any relationship ties to anyone present at the cafe. Like most men, I really did not mind a woman giving me some very innocent attention.

Soon enough though, perhaps after realizing what was going on and becoming a little jealous, the man on the other side of me leaned over and whispered into my ear, "She is my favorite girl." I just nodded my head and said that I could see why. He then leaned back into his chair and thought of another way to buck me out of my seat and away from his favorite girl. "Would it be OK if we switched seats?" he asked. I, of course, complied.

I forget this man's name, but he had a curly mass of red hair upon his head. So I will just call him Curly Red. Well, Curly Red quickly switched seats with me and began getting on the poisonous lady that was once sitting at my side. Curly Red liked to laugh a lot, and he did so by opening his mouth really widely and letting out hilarious laugh sounds that were almost more funny than that which he was laughing at. I do not know where he was from, but he was definitely of Irish decent. He had a very white face, lots of freckles, was tall and skinny, and, of course, had that mass of curly red hair.

From his new vantage point, Curly Red dived into the pit of Poison, and provoked a slight competition with Harry. Curly Red would give Poison little kisses and touches, and Harry would look dejected, and then Harry would give Poison little kisses and touches, and Curly Red would look dejected. And so it went back and forth. Poison did not mind the little kisses and touches of either man.

"You are poison," I laughing told her as I got out of my seat and passed by on my way to another vantage point at the table. She looked at me blankly for a second and then laughed as she acknowledged my statement. She knew what she was doing, and did so with absolute eloquence.

The night quickly passed into day with these kids. Poison soon disappeared with Curly Red, Harry went elsewhere, and Nilo, Viv, Etta, and I moved to another table. I got a 6AM glass of wine, and we continued talking about something. Soon it was time to be moving on, and I suggested that we go out to the island that sits plop in the center of the Danube between Buda and Pest. Etta was up for anything, Viv was willing, but Nilo had to be at work in a few hours and did not want to go that far away. So we went up to where he lives in the Gypsy district and met a couple of pigeon hunters with a slingshot in a park. (Read about this at Budapest Skid Row Pigeon Hunters.)

For a few weeks before meeting these Budapest artists I had been feeling rather estranged and socially awkward. Hostel living comes with a severe lack of alone time, and I had been feeling deep urges to abscond while in the constant presence of people. I was beginning to think myself socially unfit for general human conversation, but what I really needed was to talk to people who I had some common bond with. I found these people in the dawn of day at a little street side cafe, and I have come to call them my friends.

Only fate can say if I will ever meet this bunch of international misfit artists again, or if our times will be left to a few weeks of music, fun nights, laughter, and magic.

Links to previous travelogue entries:

• Global College LIU Graduation Requirements
• Hostel Work in Budapest
• Slovakia Photos

Artists in Budapest
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Global College LIU Graduation Requirements

Global College LIU Road Block

Feeling a little sad today. Maybe a little confused. Momentarily unsure of what Road to take.

Standing at the fork looking out in one direction and then the other. Thinking too much.

Road my bicycle out to the Budapest island and tried to peddle it all out in my head. A road block was put up in my path, and I must now choose to drive straight through it or comply, and go the long way around. Over the years I have delighted in studying in various colleges and universities around the world - I have been to eight of them already. In early 2004 I enrolled in a Japanese cultural studies program in Kyoto with an American university called Friends World (now Global College). This was either the best or worst thing that I have ever done.
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Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
in Budapest, Hungary- August 7, 2008
Travelogue -- Travel Photos
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It is probably both.

For the next four or five years I dabbled in this school. I would take a semester here, or a semester there whenever I was feeling particularly studious or I ran out of travel funds and sought to live off of scholarships, student loans, and financial aid. After Japan I studied off and on with Global College in China, India, and Morocco. It was fun, I learned more than I could dream of, and it was hard work. The semesters in this school were perhaps the biggest projects that I have yet attempted, though they always left me completely spent when finished. I always supposed that I would eventually take a degree from this college, but I never rushed myself to do so.

So when Global College - which I was lead to believe was a 4 year international program - came up with a new requirement that stated that all students must take their last semester in Brooklyn, NY, the incentive to graduate nearly c